ABSTRACT
In India, rural credit during nineteenth century was never harmonious. Whenever colonialism increased its exploitation by expanding and strengthening the infrastructure and revenue systems, rural credit became more oppressive. It may be eastern Gujarat, where Bhils were exploited by the sahukars, 1 or Bengal, where merchant-moneylenders oppressed the peasantry—the relations between moneylender and the peasant were not cordial. 2 In Andhra, new property rights created by the British government, through the land revenue systems, transformed the credit relations. The rural credit relations were now based on land relations but it was different from region to region within Andhra.
